


The Consequences of Ozone Depletion and an Environmentally Detrimental Society

by danyellz (dildolls)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Aliens, Enemies to Lovers, Environmentally Conscious Aliens, Friends to Enemies, It's ok they want to save earth not end it, Kidnapping, M/M, but they'll get there, its a complicated relationship, its all good, they're just gonna get rid of humanity to save it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-06 14:32:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11038125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dildolls/pseuds/danyellz
Summary: Dan fucking hates oversleeping. As someone who rarely gets the required eight hours of sleep overnight, however, he often wakes up delirious and confused at half past noon. There’s something so disappointing about waking up so late in the day, and he always feels as if he’s missed something important by sleeping through the morning.He never thought that something important would be the freaking apocalypse, however.--Phil Lester is not who he says he is. He's lied to everyone for years. His whole family have been. There's a reason behind the animal documentaries and extensive investigating of pop culture. But there's been a small wrench in the plans he's been a part of his whole life.Dan Howell has been happier than he can ever remember being. He's got an amazing best friend, a career most people couldn't even dream of having, and a feeling of peace he's never known. Life is good. Until it isn't. Until he's on board a spaceship. Until he's been kidnapped by his best friend. Isn't it typical that the moment things really start to go well, everything goes up in genocidal flames while you're stuck on board a spaceship populated by extreme environmentalist aliens?





	1. Oversleeping is a Bitch

**Author's Note:**

> Wow it has been a while. Over a year, I think. But I've had this one in the works for a loooong time. Parts of it are written already and just need some polish, but the vast majority is unfinished, fair warning. If I go too long between updates, feel free to harass me.

Dan fucking hates oversleeping. As someone who rarely gets the required eight hours of sleep overnight, however, he often wakes up delirious and confused at half past noon. There’s something so disappointing about waking up so late in the day, and he always feels as if he’s missed something important by sleeping through the morning. 

He never thought that something important would be the freaking apocalypse, however. 

\--

There’s nothing particularly special about the Tuesday that signified the end of life as we know it. Dan woke up at about a quarter past noon, rolled himself out of bed, and went to look for Phil. 

He wasn’t in his bedroom, nor was he in the lounge. Thinking he might have gotten tired of waiting for Dan to wake up and started breakfast without him, he went to check the kitchen. Again forgetting about the glass door from hell, Dan walked into it face first. Cursing quietly, he opened the door, and continued looking for his flatmate. 

After a brief look around, since their kitchen was a pretty small room, Dan decided Phil was not in the kitchen. There was, however, a well hidden box of crunchy nut in one of the lower cupboards, and if Phil wasn’t anywhere to be found, why shouldn’t he have a bowl of cereal without him?

Cereal and anime was an honored Dan and Phil tradition, however, so he didn’t turn on the tv. Instead he pulled up his twitter feed on his phone as he sat at the table for once. And then he closed the twitter feed, stood up from the table quick enough to knock his chair to the floor, and ran to the window. 

“What the ever loving fuck is that?” he asked himself, staring in disbelief at the giant metal something in the sky. 

“Its an alien warship,” came the completely unexpected reply from the doorway.

“Phil!” Dan shouted, spinning around to look at his flatmate, who was up and dressed. 

“Dan!” Phil said in a similar, slightly mocking tone. The smile on his face was familiar, however. It was an old joke between best friends. It made Dan relax. 

“How do you know it’s a warship, you spoon. It could be here for scientific research. It might not even be aliens, you know.” Dan was back to gazing out the window at the ship. 

It was flat, made up of rectangles and rounded corners. What must have been the front of the ship was made of edges like knives, for better aerodynamics perhaps? The ship was so large, the tail end wasn’t even visible except as a blur several miles away, and at least two thousand feet above the city. 

Dan was so enraptured by the ship he didn’t notice Phil had come closer until his voice sounded from right behind Dan. 

“It’s a warship. The science vessels are smaller and less heavily armed. And it’s alien. They’d be awfully insulted to hear you say one of us could come up with something so complex.”

“Oh, have you been talking to the aliens while I’ve been asleep, then? Chatting up about how to destroy the human race?” It was a joke, obviously. Dan didn't even turn to look at Phil if he said it. If Dan thought his flatmate was helping aliens destroy humanity, he would have been more bothered by him standing so close. But years of friendship and apartment living had made them both rather lax with boundaries, and unwaveringly trusting in the other. And maybe, in Dan’s case, he craved those moments of closeness. Only a little, though. Really. 

“Well, they make a convincing argument,” Phil said, his tone light enough to suggest a joke, but the sharp pain in Dan’s neck and the way the world immediately began to dim made Dan pretty sure his former flatmate hadn’t been joking. Former, because the minute Dan came to, he was gonna find someone less likely to betray humanity to aliens in a war nobody on Earth was prepared to fight.


	2. Wake Up Call

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY. WARNING. The very end of this chapter has some references to suicide. Full disclosure in the end notes, otherwise this one's really short. Next chapter should be longer.

Coming to after being drugged was the single worst moment of Dan’s life. And he made sure the walls of his prison knew that, pulling himself off of the surprisingly comfortable floor and into a slouch against the wall.

“You weren’t drugged,” a familiar voice crackled throughout the room.

“Oh I wasn’t, was I? Because I certainly don’t remember making a conscious choice to take a swan diving nap in the middle of the living room in the middle of an alien invasion, Philip.” Dan was bitchy when he was scared. It was a well known fact amongst his, admittedly small, friend group that Dan Howell was a mean bastard when he felt threatened. He just wasn’t used to being genuinely, bone deep afraid of Phil Lester. The voice in his prison cell. His best friend of only a few hours prior. A man he would have taken a bullet for. 

“It wasn’t drugs. Only a small shock to the spinal chord, sending your body into an unconscious state. It’s less dangerous, and supposedly easier to recover from.” If Dan didn’t know better, he’d think Phil sounded concerned. But Dan couldn’t know better, because Phil was a disembodied electronic voice sounding through a padded prison cell.

“Mate if this is supposed to be easy, I don’t ever want to be drugged.” Dan’s hands were spasming without his control, his leg muscles twitching every so often. His head felt like it was on fire from the inside out, and if it were possible, the liquid remnants of his brain would come oozing out of his ears. Dan hated to think this was the easy route.

“No. You really don’t.” Phil clearly wasn’t joking when he said that. As if it were a warning. 

Dan wasn’t interested in talking to Phil anymore, and so he kept quiet. Alone, in a dark cell, with the tinny voice of his former best friend threatening him, he just wanted to cry. But if Phil could hear him, he could see him, and Dan Howell was not about to let Phil see him cry. Not ever again. And especially, not over himself. 

And so he let his head hang limply on his shoulders, let his muscles twitch out the aftershocks of being shocked, and he stared. There was a spot on his softly padded cell floor with a grayish smudge. He stared at it until his whole point of focus was on that one little spot on the floor. He stared until a faint crackle let him know Phil had disconnected whatever communications device was letting him listen and talk to Dan. He stared until the urge to cry went from overwhelming and all consuming, to a faint buzz in the back of his mind. Like too many bees all circulating the same patch of flowers. Like the faint hum of the refrigerator running. Like so many quiet, Earth things Dan wouldn’t be hearing ever again. The kind of buzz that means you can’t hold it in forever, but Dan wouldn’t have to. 

Taking a look around, Dan saw that the cell he was in was completely barren. Nothing but four blindingly white padded walls, and a floor to match. The ceiling was tiled with some sort of faintly glowing material, that made the pristine white less abrasive, but still too much for his recovering brain.

No means of escape. 

Taking a look at his own clothes, Dan realized he was wearing his sweat pants with the drawstring waist. A possibility, but one he would have to be sure of before attempting, Dan had had his fair share of mental dark days in the past, but even at his worst he’d never actively tried to end his own life. But if it meant less time spent in this hellhole of a prison cell, it was an option he was willing to consider.

With not much else to think about, and the glow of his room dimming to near darkness, Dan slipped into an uneasy and nightmare filled sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suicide reference- Dan considers attempting to hang himself to avoid living in a prison cell. It isn't much more thought out than that, and it's more of a passing mention\thought than anything, but also nothing I'd want to stumble across blindly in a story.


	3. A Change in Scenery and an Exchange of Words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, I said this one was longer. I just forgot how much longer.

Dan awoke to glowing ceiling suddenly becoming violently bright. Sitting bolt upright from the floor, he backed himself up against the wall of his cell, moving subtly toward the right corner so he could see more of the room. However, as he was inching his way along, he felt the wall behind him give way. 

Dan jolted forward, but felt his shoulders being grabbed and dragged backwards out of the room. The hands shifted to pulling him up to standing from under his arms, and Dan was standing in a hallway that looked an awful lot like a level of Halo. Two guards were standing on either side of him, both taller than him by a few inches, and both wearing pristine white jackets that reached mid thigh, with black pants that closely resembled the leggings Dan had once worn for jogging. 

Dan would have thought they were human, if not for their eyes. Each had irises that eclipsed the sclera around them, one in a brilliant blue, the other in a deep brown. 

The guards each gave him a close-mouthed smile that reached their eyes when he looked at them, but remained silent. Dan shifted his gaze to the ground, unsure of what he was supposed to do. He felt uneasy. The smiles were warm, which only threw him off more. At least if they were cruel, he would know where he stood. 

After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, which felt like eons to Dan, one of the guards spoke. 

“You are Phil’s, yes?” Dan’s head shot up at the question, looking at the guard on the right with wide eyed shock. 

“Phil’s?” he asked, his voice barely more than a croaky whisper from disuse and sleep. 

The guard looked a little bit surprised at Dan’s reaction. “Yes. Phillip Michael Lester, popular video maker and expert on this planet. He has chosen you, yes? He asked us to come get you.”

“Chosen? Expert? Phil?” maybe Dan hadn’t quite managed to sleep off that shock yet, or maybe the guards really weren't making sense at all. 

The guards only smiled again, still keeping their teeth covered. The second guard, who had kept quiet until now, spoke up. “Maybe we should let Phil explain, -?” The noise he made seemed to be the first guards name, or perhaps rank, but it was completely unintelligible to Dan. 

The first guard laughed, ducking his head down as he did. “You’re right, -, as usual.” He looked back up, meeting Dan’s curious stare, and nodded his head forward. “Just down this hallway, -.” Dan wasn’t sure what the guard had said, but it seemed to be directed at him, and so he turned around and started walking. 

The walls of the hall were dark gray, with a brushed metal finish. The ceiling had the same glowing tiles as his cell, and the floor was the same metal as the walls, but this time in a tile pattern that had the texture going in different directions. Dan spent a majority of the walk staring at the pattern of the floor. If he hadn’t been so shaken up, he probably would have found the aesthetics of the ship pleasing. 

The hallway seemed to go on forever in either direction, with solid black doors with faintly glowing trim piping around the frame breaking up the monotony. Dan was prepared to walk for eternity, before a hand grabbing his shoulder brought him to a flinching halt. 

“Sorry, -, didn’t mean to scare you,” the first guard said. They had stopped in front of a door with green trim, a holographic display reading some sort of alphabet Dan couldn’t recognize, his own alphabet in a familiar printed scrawl reading Phil’s name, and Phil’s youtube icon. It looked like an access badge, being projected into the air before what Dan assumed was Phil’s door. “You are welcome to enter.”

Dan took that to be less of the suggestion it sounded like, and more of the order he felt. Stepping up to the door, he noticed there wasn’t a doorknob. He stood in front of it for a second, before shooting a confused look over his shoulder to the guards. 

“Erm, how do I?” he asked, looking back at the door. 

A hand reached out and pushed a very small button on the left hand side of the door. Dan wouldn’t have found it on his own, and thanked whichever guard had opened the door for him. 

The door slid into the wall, opening into an entryway with a few coats and shoes Dan recognized as belonging to both Phil and himself. The shoes were tucked neatly into individual cubbies in a black metal organizer, and the coats were hung on hooks evenly spaced and staggered along the completely black painted wall. The opposite wall was painted a bright acidic green, and the floor was an ultra plush carpet that Dan was a little jealous he didn’t have in his own flat. Well, he didn’t really have a flat anymore.

Wandering further into the unfamiliar space, Dan clutched at his sleepshirt, bunching it in his hands as he padded into a glowing, open room with high ceilings and the same alternating black and green walls. A part of the room was lower than the rest, carpet where the rest was tiled, and a large, plush looking sectional was pushed against the step facing Dan. A loveseat against the step on the right side, and, as Dan wandered further into the space, a vaguely holographic display with what appeared to be a sort of news broadcast playing. He couldn’t understand the headlines scrolling past the screen, or what was being said, but it looked like two presenters and a desk. Dan guessed some things were literally universal. 

A few feet beyond the lounge area was a breakfast bar separating a kitchen area, all gleamingly white cupboards and countertops, with black walls, a dining table set up on the other side of the island, and all around the space, on every wall except the projector, were photos and posters from their old flat. Pictures of Phil’s parents. Iron Man. The Hulk. The Muse poster. And so many pictures of the two of them. They never framed any pictures of just the two of them in the apartment. They had pictures, or at least Dan did. They’d done a lot together that he wanted to remember, and he was always the type to hoard physical reminders of things. But hanging them up around their flat just seemed too… coupley. And they weren’t a couple, no matter what the internet thought. Not anymore, at least. Not for a long time.

The pictures threw Dan. He only recognized half of them, but he knew the story behind each and every one. A trip to France or Jamaica for Youtube, or a Christmas they celebrated early, with just each other before heading off to spend it with their respective families. It was sentimental, possibly romantic. And Dan wanted to smash them. Every single photo frame. 

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, seething in rage, before he heard footsteps coming from the hall to his left. Dan waited, standing stock still just a couple feet from the doorway to the coatroom. 

Phil rounded the corner, his phone in his hand, muttering something under his breath. He looked up just as he was about to walk into Dan, and stopped, his mouth popping open in surprise.

“Dan! You’re here! Damn - and - were supposed to text me when they went to get you.” He looked back down at his phone in confusion, which was when Dan realized it was a very different model than the iphone he’d been expecting. 

Dan stayed silent. He didn’t have much to say.

Phil looked back up, a frown on his face. “I thought you might have more questions.” He spoke softly, gently, almost like an apology. Dan wouldn’t let himself be swayed.

As many questions as there were bursting through his brain, he wouldn’t speak now. The thought of having to open his mouth and force the words out was too much. He knew enough. He was on a spaceship, he was brought here by Phil, who had electrocuted him, and he was alone. He looked down at the tiles again.

“Are you seriously not going to even speak to me? Look at me? Really mature, Daniel.” Phil’s voice was upset, almost angry, but mostly sad. Dan wasn’t swayed. He couldn’t look up. It sounded like too much work. Why look up, meet Phil’s eyes, when the floor was so much easier to look at.

Phil sighed, taking a step back. “At least let me show to your room. I don’t think you need directions for the kitchen.” The joke fell flat, and Dan only stared. He was doing that a lot lately. Staring at the floor. 

He heard a scoff, and footsteps. He looked up at Phil’s back, stomping away toward the hallway he’d just come from. Dan shuffled after him. He did look forward to having a room that wasn’t covered in sinister white padding, but his feet felt so heavy he could only drag them after Phil.   
The hallway was wide, well lit, and had four doors, one at the very end, two on the left, and one on the right. Phil pointed out the first door on the left being the bathroom, and pushed open the single door on the right before pausing outside. 

Dan looked up, making sure this was his room before shuffling forward. In the split second he had looked at Phil, he saw the older man’s face change from annoyance to almost fear.   
“Dan, are you alright?” Phil reached out a hand towards him, but Dan jerked back, stumbling sideways into the room. Phil’s attempt at comfort, or the same friendliness they’d always shown each other made the rage still simmering within him bubble violently, making his vision blur and his limbs feel as though they were vibrating with energy he didn’t know he had.

Standing in the middle of the room Phil had provided for him, Dan finally met Phil’s eyes with purpose. He wasn’t alright. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be alright at the moment. The rage sweeping through his body made him feel powerful for a fleeting second, and the bitter words at the back of his tongue, pouring out of his mouth before he could even think them properly felt right. Like a weight being lifted off of his shoulders for a fleeting second. This had happened before, and afterwards, when the dust had cleared, he’d felt nothing but regret for what he remembered saying. But not now. He was going to mean every word he was about to shoot at Phil Fucking Lester.

“No, Phil. I’m not alright. See, my roommate of seven years, my best friend, someone I trusted very much has done something quite odd. You see I woke up one morning, only to see a space ship hovering over London, and my best friend seems to have some sort of knowledge about this, which is strange I’ll admit, but not nearly as strange as him electrocuting me until I fell unconscious. And when I wake up, rather miserable, feeling like shit, said friend of mine is nothing but a voice in a padded cell. Now he’s graciously given me a room in what must be his new apartment, decorated all over like a home he’s been planning for ages. Our posters. Pictures of us. My best friend planned to kidnap me and drag me unwillingly onto a space ship, Phil. My best friend was a liar and a thief, Phil. My best friend was never really my best friend at all. Is that enough of an answer, or too much emotional baggage shared between strangers?”

Dan never raised his voice, he never broke eye contact, and he never swore. He was too angry for any of that to cheapen the impact of his words. Throughout his speech, Phil’s eyes grew shinier and shinier, like he were holding back tears, but not very successfully. A few managed to slip down his pale cheeks. And when Dan had finished, he slumped. The anger that had him drawn to his full height like the sheer magnitude of his rage could lift him like a puppet on a string dissipated, leaving him slumped in an unfamiliar room staring into once familiar eyes. Now he wondered if he ever knew the man in front of him. The man silently crying in the doorway.

Phil left after that. He didn’t shut the door, he didn’t say a word, he just walked away. Dan heard a door close shortly afterward, softly, and Dan assumed it was the one marking Phil’s own room. Dan’s encounter with Phil had left him drained. He looked briefly around the room, not really seeing it, before locating the bed and stumbling towards it. When he collapsed into the plush mattress, he felt the tears he’d been trying so hard to suppress prick at his eyes. But he hadn’t closed the door, and getting up now was out of the question. So he squeezed his eyes shut as hard as he could, and thought about nothing. He thought of nothing at all, because everything, even the sky, was a tainted memory.


	4. A Truce Like the Tide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it comes and goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one was a bitch to write. for some godforsaken reason, daniel howell cannot make up his mind about being angry or wanting peace. don't you hate fictional characters up and running away from where you want to take them?

Dan woke up, feeling cold but unbelievable comfortable. He had a feeling he was forgetting something, but the dream he’d been having had been so nice. It wasn’t anything special, just him walking along a deserted beach, a slight chill in the air, the sky a steely blue, but he could see a group in the distance. He heard laughter, and it felt familiar, but he couldn’t pick up one voice from the rest of the group. It felt happy, safe, and vaguely like a memory. It wasn’t anything special, but he clung to the dream as hard as he could.

But cold reality set in quickly. This was not his bed. His bed was not quite so comfortable. The mattress had been bought when he was five years younger and so much poorer. This was a luxury mattress. And this was not his room. And this was not a happy day at the beach. And that feeling of comfort and happiness was never meant to last.

Dan was laying on his stomach, still wearing the pajamas, on top of the covers of the bed he wouldn’t call his. His door was still open, and he could hear the familiar sounds of _Buffy’s_ opening coming from somewhere in the apartment. 

Dan debated getting up. There were so many reasons not to. Seeing Phil, seeing more of the apartment Phil had been putting together behind his back, actually having to move when he felt so tired. But he had to pee, and that would only get worse with time. 

Dan still didn’t look around the bedroom too much. He didn’t want to find familiarity in something so literally alien. He was terrified of feeling like he was home, when he would really never be again.

The door to the bathroom was closer to the living room end of the hall, where the sounds of _Buffy_ were no doubt coming from. 

Sitting up in bed, he felt his head spin violently, the world around him fuzzing out of focus for a moment. He didn’t black out, however, which was a relief. He really did have to pee. He sat at the edge of the bed for a few more moments, letting his body adjust to being upright and awake. When he no longer felt like the world was a gravity based carnival ride, he lifted himself onto his feet, padding across the (still luxuriously plush) carpet and down the hall. 

The sounds of Buffy grew louder as he reached the end of the hall, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about Phil at the moment. Whether he was in the room or not. Whether he noticed Dan or not. Whether he spoke to Dan or not. None of it would have made any difference. Dan had said enough. 

He was halfway down the hall after using the bathroom when he heard the show’s voices stop abruptly. He kept shuffling unhurriedly. Phil either heard him leave the bathroom and knew he was awake, or he didn’t and was up for a different reason. 

“Dan.” The first one, then. Dan stopped. Something in Phil’s tone made him pause. “There’s breakfast on the counter?” The way he said it, like a question, made it feel much more loaded than an offer of food. Dan never was good at staying mad at Phil. As much as he could hold a grudge, he just couldn’t stay angry when it came to Phil.

Unfortunately for the both of them, this was much deeper than anger. More complex. This was betrayal, and lost love, and more pain than Dan could ever remember one person being responsible for in his life. But it was Phil, and Dan was tired. So he gave. Just a little. 

“I’m not hungry right now, maybe later.” He didn’t turn around, didn’t look to see the shock in Phil’s voice at his response, but he felt a shift in the way they were each holding themselves around the other. 

“I’ll put it in the fridge, then?” But Dan had started walking again. He had spoken, and been civil. That was enough for the day. 

A thought occurred to him. He didn’t know what day it was. Or how days were being measured on an alien ship. Or what was happening to the world. He nearly asked. But that felt like more of a concession to Phil than he was really interested in giving. Exhaustion and forgiveness were two very different things. 

This time when he reached the room allotted him, he shut the door behind him, pulled the covers back, and buried his face in unfamiliar softness. His body was beyond well-rested, but his brain wanted nothing more than the unthinking softness of sleep. Of warm memories of a cold beach day, and dinners with friends he would no longer see. 

He lay there a long time, not doing much of anything. His brain sluggishly jumped from memory to memory. Little things he had taken for granted. For his infamous reputation as someone who loathed all things not from a wifi connection, he had more longing memories of time spent away from his precious laptop than he realized he would. 

He was lost in thought about his day out looking for a Farfetch’d in Hong Kong when his thoughts took a more involved turn. It was a stupid, frustrating, humid adventure, and in the end all he’d gotten was one and half million views on a video for the gaming channel. But he’d seen more of Hong Kong in that one trip than he’d seen of London for the first eight months they’d lived there. All those people, all those attractions, they were probably gone now. 

He didn’t know the aliens or their plan, but if he was on board a spaceship, a warship if Phil was to be believed, then that didn’t exactly bode well for the rest of humanity and their continued existence. Which begged the question. Why save him?

Out of all the lives that could be spared from whatever nefarious plan the aliens have, why would they save Dan? Except, he’d asked that. As broken as his question had been, he had asked why he was chosen. And the answer from the guards had been Phil. That Phil had picked him to be saved. But that opened up more questions. If Phil was in a position to be picking people to be saved, how many had he saved, what gave him the power to choose, and how long had he known the end would be coming? 

As much as Dan wanted to know, he also didn’t. If Phil had known for years that humankind was doomed, was gathering subscribers and friends and memories with a known expiration date, Dan didn’t want to know any of it. Wanted to believe his friend was the kind soul he’d always _known_ him to be. And what had Phil been doing to make the aliens want to give him that choice in saving lives? The guards had answered that, too. They’d called him an expert. But an expert on what? Video production? _Buffy_? Useless Animal Facts? Injuring yourself in increasingly stupid ways?

The more Dan wondered and thought and questioned, the angrier he became. The anger from before filled him like a wave of energy and fire. His hands shook, his blood rushed, and his vision seemed to shimmer at the edges. These mood swings were violent, all consuming, and, much like the rest of Dan’s ultimately shitty situation, _entirely Phil’s fault._

With the rage inside him feeling like a drum beating his foot stomps to the rhythm of his heart, he marched into the living room where Phil was curled into the couch watching _Buffy_. Standing in the mouth of the hall, he announced his presence with all the subtlety he could muster. 

“Phil. I want answers. Now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, thank you if you left a comment or kudos over the last few weeks! i really super appreciate that shit, yo.


End file.
